If you are looking for tried and tested recipes I would pick up the book Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff. All of the BJCP beer styles are covered and every one has placed at one competition or another.

I'd also recommend a trip to howtobrew.com or just buy John Palmers book of the same name.

Jamil's book is a solid collection that will cover most any style that you want to make. Brew-your-own has also published an collection of his recipes and the associated beer style column from that magazine. BYO also has a collection of 250 clone recipes, if you want to try and make something similar to a particular beer.

Since you are just starting, you might want to brew a few solid kits at first. Northernbrewer.com has a nice collection of kits that seem to have a good reputation, and they have the recipes readily available on their site. Reading the recipes will help you learn what malts and hops might work in what types of beer, if you want to design your own recipes in the future.

When you want to build your own recipes,I'd start by thinking about what beer you like to drink and would like to make, then start learning about those styles and how they have been made historically. Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels is a helpful book that doesn't really have recipes, but talks about what ingredients have made successful beer in the past.

When you choose a style to brew I was nurtured by someone who said keep it simple and use recipes that many people have had success with.

A quick and easy brew which is successful builds confidence far quicker than a complicated brew than one has to wait for 12 months to mature - for example I like Russian Stouts but my mentor at the time said I should start on brewing Porters and dark lagers because they are quicker and take less time to mature so you can enjoy the flavours faster.....

From there I still continued with kits but added a few extra additives like Chillis, Chocolate and Cinnamon...

There are many good kits out there which turn out some very good beer...

As for books there are plenty out there (now I simply own too many read) Jamil's book is well worth the investment and to have in your brewing library but what I do now is go to the local library read the any new books they have and only buy them if they are useful...